COVID-19 killed a thousand Wisconsinites in three weeks. These residents don’t see the danger.

Dan
trusts practically nothing the media and medical establishments say about the
COVID-19 pandemic. He considers the threat overblown. And saying as much on
Twitter has triggered some heated arguments.

“You
question anything, you get told you’re going to kill grandma or you’re doing
something wrong, and you’re made to feel like you’re unpatriotic for not
putting on a mask,” he told Wisconsin Watch.

Dan
of Muskego, Wisconsin, is an active voter who’s worked for the past several
years at a restaurant. He requested that Wisconsin Watch omit his last name for
fear of online harassment. He counts himself as one of the few people watching
the “real world,” unlike those who “live in ignorance.”

Believing
that “both sides of the aisle are completely corrupt,” Dan characterizes
COVID-19 stay-at-home measures as a deliberate attempt by Democratic
politicians to “tank” the U.S. economy.

“I
feel like they’re trying to literally destroy businesses,” he said. “And that
fits into what I believe is the greater agenda: … Trying to get people
dependent on government income.”

He’s
not alone in seeing stay-at-home orders and business restrictions as a
coordinated assault on commerce rather than a last-resort measure to slow the
spread of a highly infectious disease that has claimed more than a quarter of a
million lives in the United States, including more than 3,700 in Wisconsin.

In
the spring, an estimated 1,500 protesters
gathered
at the Wisconsin State Capitol, demanding that the statewide COVID-19 lockdown
be lifted. Others blame the wearing of masks — a key public health strategy —
for causing rather than preventing infection.

Over
the summer, members of the Appleton City Council were forced to bat down
unfounded rumors that contact
tracers were surveilling residents. And in an extreme example,
staffers at the Milwaukee Health Department recently received death threats for enforcing COVID-19 orders,
according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Misinformation
has been a destructive force working against the state’s coronavirus response,
said Dr. Jeff Pothof, chief quality and safety officer with UW Health.

“I
don’t think any of us thought, when the pandemic started, that one of the
biggest barriers we’d have to overcome would be misinformation from people who
have no idea what they’re talking about,” he said.

Skeptics
interviewed by Wisconsin Watch include people who embrace the increasingly
popular QAnon conspiracy theory, are generally suspicious of vaccinations,
consume nontraditional medical advice and value personal freedom above what
they believe are exaggerated public health considerations. They also
acknowledge that their beliefs have put them crossways at work and with family.

Conspiratorial
thinking is common during national crises, said Dietram Scheufele, a
communications professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies
public attitudes and policy dynamics surrounding emerging science.

“It’s
partly human nature,” Scheufele said, adding that such theories have been
fueled by government officials including President Donald Trump.

Scientists
have been tasked with
striking down misinformation on COVID-19 while their own  understanding of the new coronavirus evolves
in real time — leading to confusion, skepticism and even denial around the
respiratory disease.

“We
knew that we would produce a lot of science that would turn out to be wrong,”
Scheufele said. “You make a mistake in the spotlight with 330 million Americans
watching, that mistake — maybe a small one — will be seen by everybody.”

The roots of denialism

That
so many people believe the pandemic isn’t real, or at least isn’t a big deal,
is partly the work of mind mechanisms known as biased assimilation and
motivated reasoning.

“It
doesn’t really matter what you tell me because I’m just going to fit it into my
existing belief system, and I’m really not going to change what I think,”
Scheufele said, describing the phenomena. “Of course, during a time like a
pandemic — where we do need to change behaviors, we do need to change our
interactions with one another and our daily routines — that’s just utterly
dysfunctional.” 

This
denialism plays into a looming issue — vaccination — which could prove critical
as the world moves into a sensitive new phase of the pandemic. While nations
race to develop multiple coronavirus vaccines for distribution, many U.S.
residents say they will not take them.

Having
worked in education for 28 years, “Susan” said she would walk away from her job
at a school district in northern Wisconsin if she is required to be vaccinated
against the coronavirus. Susan asked Wisconsin Watch to use a pseudonym because
she fears coming out against vaccination could jeopardize her career.

“A
lot of people in our school district and in the health care field up here feel
the same exact way; they do not want it,” she said. “It was done way too fast.”

Roughly
three in five U.S. adults said they “would definitely or probably” get a
COVID-19 vaccine in a national survey conducted by Pew Research Center in
November — up from about half of respondents in September. But that means two in
five do not plan to get vaccinated.

Susan
believes the pandemic is real but overhyped. She tested positive for COVID-19
on Sept. 29, after falling ill with similar symptoms in January. (She believes
she caught the coronavirus twice.) After missing nearly a month of work between
the two bouts of illness, she’s still short of breath and has difficulty
walking down the hallway at work.

Mixed mask messages breed distrust

Susan
blames the mask she is required to wear on the job for her labored breathing
and generally disapproves of Gov. Tony Evers’ mask mandate. She doesn’t think
masks help slow the spread of COVID-19, insisting that they instead represent a
health hazard.

“I
think that since the mask mandate went into effect, it got worse in northern
Wisconsin,” she said.

What
happened in northern Wisconsin was not unique, however. The Upper Midwest,
which was spared the surge that hit New York in April and early May, began
seeing an increase in COVID-19 infections this summer that has continued into
the winter in states with a variety of mandates around masking.

And
no evidence supports the claim that wearing a mask is harmful to
your health. But early in the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention discouraged mask-wearing by the general public unless they were
having COVID-19 symptoms.

The
CDC reversed course on
April 3,
which caused some to question the agency’s advice. Subsequent studies have
verified that masks protect wearers and others from the spray
of respiratory droplets of virus when worn over the nose and mouth. The CDC recently recommended “universal mask wearing” for all
indoor activity outside an individual’s home and for outdoor activities where
six feet of social distancing cannot be maintained.

Although
she’s fiercely opposed to wearing masks and taking a COVID-19 vaccine, Susan
favors another statewide stay-at-home order to combat the virus that has taken
her breath away. And she trusts public health officials such as Dr. Anthony
Fauci  — sometimes.

“Do
I believe Dr. Fauci? Damn right I believe him. He’s damn good at what he does,
and I am a firm believer in him,” she said, pausing. “Except for the mask part
of it. I don’t believe that.”

‘I do not need to be afraid’

Julie
Drigot believes that “wearing a mask is absolutely insane.”

“Keeping
people locked up is not ever going to be normal, and wearing diapers across my
mouth is never going to be normal,” she said, adding that wearing masks makes
her dizzy.

A
career teacher, Drigot recently moved to the little hamlet of Little Prairie to
fulfill her dream of running a small farm school; a handful of children visit
her a couple of times a week for instruction.

Drigot
said she was “paralyzed with fear” during the early days of the pandemic. As
someone with a pre-existing medical condition, she was afraid that “this was
going to kill me.”

She
went looking for information sources that were more reassuring. Drigot consults
a number of websites known to produce pseudoscientific content, such as The
HighWire with Del Bigtree, a major voice in the national anti-vaccination
movement.

The
website has promoted anti-mask sentiment and the debunked “Great Reset” conspiracy theory, which claims world leaders
orchestrated the pandemic to destroy capitalism and take control of the global
economy.

In
July, Bigtree’s YouTube account was deactivated for
pushing misinformation about vaccines and COVID-19, including his suggestion that
people should intentionally expose themselves to the coronavirus.

Drigot
takes issue with the “censorship” of voices like Bigtree’s. All viewpoints
should be shared freely, she said.

“I
can make up my own mind, thank you very much, right? That’s my attitude,”
Drigot said.

‘Looking for the truth’

Describing
himself as a politically “middle of the road,” Dan admits to having a history
of conspiratorial thinking. But he takes issue with the term “conspiracy
theory,” which he says has been used to discredit truth-seekers.

“Looking
for the truth, you kind of guide yourself there, and eventually you come to
your own understanding of what’s going on,” he said.

In
mild-mannered tones, Dan described his belief in QAnon — the baseless far-right theory that Trump is helping to expose a
cabal of Satan-worshipping, child-cannibalizing celebrities, journalists and
politicians. Dan said he began following QAnon since it emerged on the
anonymous message board 4Chan in October 2017.

“As
much as the media attacks it,” he said, “it makes it more legit to me.”

He’s
wary of how quickly the vaccines were developed and wonders whether the “end
game” is forced vaccinations. All evidence is refutable, he said, and, “There’s
no real information.”

Arguing
has caused difficulty in Dan’s personal life. He used to talk freely about
politics with his mother, but that changed during Trump’s presidency, he said. 

“We’re
being pitted against each other, and it doesn’t feel very good,” Dan said.
“It’s terrible. It’s not fun to be living in this.”

Howard Hardee is a Madison-based
journalist who created a misinformation toolkit for consumers funded by the Craig Newmark Philanthropies. He is a fellow
at First Draft, an organization that trains journalists to detect and report on
disinformation. Wisconsin Watch (wisconsinwatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, PBS Wisconsin,
other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism
and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by
Wisconsin Watch do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison
or any of its affiliates.